Siege of Jadotville

The Siege of Jadotville (13-17 September 1961) took place during the United Nations intervention in the Congo Crisis. The 158-strong Irish A Company, 35th Battalion, ONUC, commanded by Commandant Pat Quinlan, defended the UN compound at Jadotville (now Likasi) in the Katanga region from a force of 5,000 Katanga Gendarmerie troops and European mercenaries; the gendarmes were led by freshly recruited soldiers from France, Germany, Belgium, and South Africa who were almost all Algerian War veterans. The siege began in response to the massacre of 30 people by UN peacekeepers at the Radio Katanga building in the Katangese capital Elisabethville during Operation Morthor, and the Irish troops held off several assaults by the mercenaries, digging trenches. The mercenaries once set up a ceasefire to retrieve their wounded, but they instead used the ceasefire to launch a surprise attack; the UN peacekeepers held off the attack, and they would withstand several more attacks, which involved mortars and planes. The UN peacekeepers began to ran low on ammunition and water after the water was poisoned and they fired most of their bullets at the mercenaries and Katangese, and their demands for reinforcements were ignored until a 500-strong relief force was sent to assist them. The relief force was pinned down at a nearby bridge, and it withdrew after failing to break through to the compound. After more enemy assaults, Quinlan decided to surrender rather than allow for his men to be massacred, and the UN soldiers were imprisoned for one month before being allowed to return home. 1,300 Katangese and mercenary troops were lost, while just 5 Irish soldiers were wounded, with none dying.